What If
by writergirl9106
Summary: What if it wasn't Finn Megan fell for? What if Evan was a bigger jerk than anybody realized? And what if Sean played a bigger role anyone ever thought of?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

The horrendous car ride from the airport was finally over. I'd flown all the way from the Navy base in California, to Boston Massachusetts where I was being forced to live for the next four months at least. See, my parents are both in the Navy and just got shipped to Iraq. Me? I was being sent to the insane asylum commonly known as the McGowan house. John McGowan is my father's best friend from basic training and they've stayed in touch over the years. There's nobody else my parents would entrust my safe keeping to in this situation other than the McGowan's. Unfortunately.

See, the McGowan's are not just your normal American family with three kids all close in age. Oh no, that would be much to hope for. The McGowan's have _seven_ boys. Yup, you read that right, _seven_. Ranging in age from twenty down to six. And quite frankly, being sixteen myself and having had minimal extensive exposure to my peers because of the constant traveling my parents job ensues, the thought of living with them terrifies me. Never mind the fact that these boys have hung me upside down over so many different objects (pools, wells, anything where they could threaten to drown me) over the years that I don't fully trust them. This however was my only option. Both sets of my grandparents had died when I was a baby and the McGowan's are my legal guardians should (Heaven forbid) anything ever happen to my parents.

Regina McGowan pulled her car into the driveway and I noticed that everyone else was in the front yard playing some very bizarre and messed up version of ultimate Frisbee. None of them were wearing shirts. I stared. There was no way the grubby little chubby monsters who had been so mean to me growing up had morphed into these lean solid muscled teenage heartthrobs.

"You can lock yourself in the car sweetheart but eventually they will break in and drag you out." Regina said, breaking into my state of shock. I hope she wasn't thinking I was ogling her boys. It was impossible to tell though. The sympathetic smile on her face could have been there for any number of reasons.

"Why don't you just come out of your own free will and deny them the pleasure of trying to pry you out of the car?"

"Deal." I said, breaking my gaze away from the nightmare awaiting me on the lawn and grinning at her.

I got out of the car and walked around to the trunk and grabbed the bag with my pajamas and underwear and my laptop case while Regina grabbed my suitcase. "We'll leave your bike for the boys to take down and put in the garage later." She said, heading towards the house.

"Megan!" A voice from behind the crowd of boys broke out, John McGowan stepped forward arms opened wide and wrapped me in the biggest bear hug I've ever had. "Look how much you've grown! It's been, what, four years since the last time we saw you?"

"Six." I corrected as he set me back down on my feet.

"A long time at anyrate." He glanced back over his shoulder at the group of boys standing just behind him and staring pointedly at me. "You boys just gonna stand there or are you gonna introduce yourselves?"

One of the taller ones stepped forward and offered his hand. "I'm Finn and I think you're going to be in my class at school. You're a junior right?" He had shaggy dark blond hair that was slightly curly at the ends and piercing pale blue eyes.

"Yeah."

"Awesome. This here is Evan." Evan was roughly the same height as Finn with the same blond hair (only slightly shorter) and brown eyes. "The twins Doug and Miller." Miller was staring pointedly at the ground and wearing a Yankees baseball jersey and Doug was glaring at me like I was something summoned straight from his personal form of hell just to torture him. "That's Ian." Ian was about eight years old and looked just like the rest of his brothers only with much shorter hair. Just then the smallest one came running towards the group making fire engine sounds and ran straight into me. "And that little runt is Caleb." Finn said smiling fondly at Caleb who was grinning up at me as if he'd just found his new best friend.

"Hi Megan."

"Hi Caleb."

That was only six boys though. There was one missing.

"SEAN!" John hollered towards the garage, "Get out here! Your mom and Megan are here!"

The garage door banged open and there _he _was. The ring leader of the pack. The one who _always_ was the one instigating the "let's see how we can try and drown Megan today" incidents. Sean McGowan. Shorter than the oldest of his younger brothers, he wasn't quite six feet tall, his hair was darker than everybody else's (a trait clearly inherited from his mother) and eyes the most beautiful shade of green I've ever seen before in my whole life. He walked calmly towards the group and I noticed he had the Orange County Choppers logo tattooed on his right arm and unlike the rest of his brothers he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt (even if it did have its sleeves cut off).

"Hello Megan." He shot that sweet grin my way and I melted all over again, just the way I had when we were kids.

"Hello Sean."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

I was sitting on my new bed after dinner staring out the window trying to adjust to everything when some one knocked on my door.

"Come in." Regina stepped into the room.

"How's the unpacking going?"

"I'm done. There wasn't much to unpack." I pretty much had paired down most of my stuff to my clothes and my few favorite books, movies and CD's when I heard that I would be moving.

"I was thinking since tomorrow is Saturday that maybe we could go shopping and get some stuff to decorate your room. I left everything plain since I'm sure your tastes have changed drastically from the princess stage you were in the last time I saw you." She smiled.

"Yeah they have." I said laughing remembering how horribly the multiple shades of pink in my room had clashed when I was little. "I pretty much stick to creamy whites and various shades of brown these days."

"How does going to Bed, Bath & Beyond sound? That way you can get the stuff to decorate your bathroom too?"

"I have my own bathroom?" I looked around the room perplexed realizing that perhaps what I'd thought was a second closet was probably the door to the bathroom.

"Yep, right through there. John isn't done fixing it up yet, it's seen a lot of wear and tear over the years, but you can at least look at it and decide how you want to decorate it when it's done. So what do you think? Want to head out in the morning and stop for lunch somewhere on the way home?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Good night sweetheart." She came over and kissed my head before she left.

I flopped back on my bed after Regina left and thought back over the day. All in all, as horrendous as it had seemed to me at the time it actually hadn't been too horrible. Doug and Miller had both ignored me, Miller mostly because he has Asperger's Syndrome and doesn't adjust well to new people, and Doug? Well, who knew what Doug's problem was. Finn had been polite and Caleb had officially adopted me as his big sister. The verdict was still apparently with Ian and where I stood with him, and I was doing everything possible to avoid Evan. He'd been flirting with me ever since I'd arrived despite the fact I'd made it clear I wasn't interested. And then there was Sean.

I used to have this massive crush on Sean when I was younger. I though he was just the best thing in the world, which was how I usually ended up hanging upside down over water deep enough to drown me. Sean would say "Come check this out Megan!" and I'd follow him. I never learned. I was just hoping that having spent six years away from him that I would be so foolish anymore. Not to mention he was twenty now and I'm sixteen, two totally different worlds. I'm still in high school he's halfway through college.

My door seemed to open of its own accord and Sean stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest.

"Hey Meggie." My heart stopped for the briefest second at my old nickname, the nickname that only Sean and my parents had been allowed to call me.

"Wow."

"What?"

"It's been a while since I've heard that one."

"Really?"

"My parents stopped using it around the same time of our last visit with you guys."

"Hmph." He stared out the window.

"Did you want something Sean?"

"Hm? Oh, nothing much, just wanted to come say hi and see how you were settling in."

He was acting weird, staring at me funny, but not in the same obvious lustful way that Evan had been all night. This wasn't the Sean that I remembered, but then, he had been fourteen the last time I'd seen him and he was twenty now.

"I'm fine. Your mom's taking me shopping tomorrow so that I can decorate my room and the bathroom when it's done."

"Yeah, that's gonna take Dad and I awhile. Evan and Doug were pretty rough on it."

"Was this their room?" I hadn't wanted to put anybody out of their room. Sean seemed to sense my growing discomfort with this revelation and reassured me.

"Yeah, but Mom and Dad will both tell you that they needed to be bumped down a peg, especially Evan. It will be good for them having to share a room with somebody other than themselves."

"Does this mean that you guys are now three to a room now?"

"Nope. I have the attic to myself. Doug and Miller are in a room together. Evan's sharing with Finn. And Ian and Caleb are bunking together just like they've been doing from day one. "

"Oh. Okay."

"Don't worry about it Meggie. Chill. It will be good for the monkeys." He looked me straight in the eye holding my gaze with his.

"If you say so. " I shrugged and sat up. "I'm going to get ready for bed now." He still just stood there staring at me with that weird look on his face.

"Sean?"

"Okay. See you in the morning Meggie."

"'Night." He left and shut the door behind him.

I pulled on my pajamas and crawled into bed even though it was just barely nine 'o'clock. I laid there just staring at the ceiling as I waited for sleep to come and claim me. What had I gotten myself into? What was with Sean? And that crush I'd had on him that I thought I was over? Well I guess I wasn't. Having him that close still made my heart stop and the use of my nickname made it start beating again double time. Luckily, I wouldn't see much of him tomorrow since I'd be going shopping.

_But he's the one helping John fix your bathroom._ A voice in my head whispered as I fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

I woke with a start the next morning as something landed on top of me yelling, "MORNIN' MEGAN!" I rolled over underneath whoever was on top of me and found myself staring into Caleb's wide blue eyes.

"Do you always wake people up like this?" I grumbled, shoving him off me so I could sit up.

"Yup, but mostly on Christmas and other special 'cassions." I smiled.

"I tell you a secret, but you have to promise not to tell Sean and Evan." He whispered solemnly, leaning in and looking me straight in the eye.

"I promise."

"Sometimes Mommy and Daddy tell me to wake Sean and Evan up like this if they were out to late playing with their friends at night." I laughed.

"Sounds like fun to me. Tell you what," I leaned in closer, "The next time your parents tell you to do it, you come wake me up first and I'll record it on my video camera." If possible, Caleb's eyes got even wider.

"Promise?" He whispered.

"I promise." I offered him my hand. What I hadn't told Caleb was that I would be posting that video on Facebook (since all of the McGowan's that have Facebook are on my friends list) and tagging the unfortunate boy involved in it. I wasn't big into the whole payback deal, but that seemed like a pretty decent trade-off to me.

"Deal." We shook, "Come on, Mommy's got breakfast cooking." He scrambled off my bed and out into the hallway. I grabbed my bathrobe and hurried after him. Somehow I had the feeling that mealtime around here could be a zoo and I wanted to get to the table first to make sure I actually got food.

Caleb and I were not the first ones at the table however. Sean was there already, buried in the pages of a paperback novel with what appeared, judging from the lack of contents in the coffee pot, to be his third or fourth cup of coffee.

"Where's Mommy?" Caleb asked, looking around the kitchen perplexed.

"Upstairs."

"I see you're still the master of one word answers." I said as I grabbed a piece of toast off the giant pile on the counter. He came out from behind his book long enough to shoot another grin at me, "Yup." And then disappeared behind the book again.

I had just gotten Caleb settled at the table with cereal and sat down myself with my breakfast when the rest of the boys came barging into the room and descended on the food on the counter like vultures.

I managed to finish my breakfast and snag another piece of toast on my way out of the kitchen. Yes, I eat fast, and on a morning like this morning I'm glad about it. I wouldn't have stayed at that table with that level of insanity for anything. I bumped into Regina on my way out of the kitchen.

"Oh! Good morning Megan. Did you sleep well last night?"

"I slept fine thanks. Had a bit of an early wake up call," I said, smiling over my shoulder at Caleb, "but nothing horrible."

"I asked him to wake you up nicely, oh well, I suppose that's what we get for encouraging him to do it to Sean and Evan." She smiled ruefully at her youngest.

"What time were you thinking about heading out?" I asked, polishing off the piece of toast and heading for the stairs.

"Whenever you and Evan are ready. He's finally decided it's time for a new comforter and curtains, heard we were going out today and asked to tag along."

"I see."

"Come downstairs when you're ready to go. If Evan's not ready he'll miss out."

"Okay." I hurried upstairs secretly hoping Evan would dawdle long enough to get left behind. I didn't want to spend my entire morning fending him and his over-inflated ego off.

I was back downstairs less than a half an hour later, only to find both Regina _and_ Evan putting on their shoes and heading for the door.

"Ready sweetheart?" Regina asked and I realized I was standing and staring.

"Hm? Oh, yeah, I guess so." We piled into the car and took off. This was going to be a long day. It was barely nine in the morning and there was no way I could handle being civil to Evan for the next couple of hours, I just knew it. And I was right.

"Come on Megan! It's just a little get together at my friends house this evening!" He whined again. He'd been trying to convince me all morning (when his mother was out of earshot) to go this "little party" his friends were having tonight.

"Give me one good reason."

"I'll give you two. Number one, you should meet everyone before you start school so you're not trying to juggle new faces and new classes and number two, I don't have anyone else to go with and I don't want to go alone." He pouted as if he somehow expected me to melt like that just at the sight of him. Don't get me wrong, Evan's incredibly good looking, he's just so full of himself that it's a massive turn off for me, unlike most of the girls he knew apparently.

"No." I started to walk off. He grabbed my arm hard and pulled me back.

"Megan, you wouldn't want to start school off on the wrong foot with everybody would you?" He whispered, and I wasn't sure but that there was maybe and under current of a threat somewhere in his tone of voice.

"Let go of me now." I hissed, "Before I yell loud enough to catch the attention of every moose up in Canada." He released my arm and for a second I thought I had won, until Regina rounded to corner coming towards us. He would have seen her before she'd seen us because of the display set up I realized.

"There you two are. Evan, I found these for curtains and Megan, they have the most amazing cream colored comforter with a light brown and dark brown swirl pattern on it I thought you might be interested in."

"Thanks Regina." I picked up the comforter and looked at it. It really was pretty cool, the swirls of light brown thick and the dark brown swirls were thinner. "It's perfect." I said smiling at her.

"Did you want to look at stuff for your bathroom today too?" She asked as she headed in that direction.

"No, I think I'm all set."

We ate in the food court of the mall before going back to the house even though it was just after eleven. Evan kept his distance the whole way back to the house. I spent the trip wondering what his problem was. I finally decided it was just because I was a new girl in town and I just presented him with a beautiful challenge, the challenge being the fact that I hadn't swooned at his feet the moment I'd laid eyes on him and he smiled at me. I decided right then and there, that I would do everything humanly possible to stay clear of Evan McGowan.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

We got back to the house and I made a beeline for my room, desperate to get away from Evan and his increasingly unnerving glares. I was not the only person in my room though I discovered after flopping onto my bed and breathing a sigh of relief.

"Rough morning Meggie?" I bolted upright and discovered Sean working on the sink in my bathroom. "Evan can be a bit of a pain in the butt sometimes."

"Um, yeah."

"You let me know if you have any problems with him okay?"

"Sure." I stared at him. "Do you ever wear a shirt that actually has sleeves on it?"

"Mm, nope. Does my coat count?"

"No. "

"Well, sometimes in the winter, come to think of it, I will wear the occasional shirt with sleeves."

"Hmph." I flopped back down on the bed. It was way easier than looking at him. The more I found myself looking at him the more I found my childhood crush coming back. Especially since he hadn't shaved in a day or two (or three) and was currently sporting that scruffy look that I absolutely loved.

"What'd he do?" Sean asked, going back to work on the pipes under the sink.

"What?"

"What'd Evan do to you?"

"Nothing." I decided not to tell the whole story yet. "Just tried to talk me into going to some party."

"Hmph." He made that weird monosyllabic sound that's somewhere between a grunt and a snort, as if he didn't believe me, which, I knew he didn't. "Do yourself a favor. Stay as far away from Evan and his crowd as you possibly can."

"No problem there." I muttered, "You couldn't pay me enough." He laughed. After that things were quiet between us. I finally got up and fixed my bed from where I'd rumpled the blankets with all the flopping on them and then stretched out on my stomach to write a letter to my parents. Despite the silence though, every few minutes I'd catch Sean looking at me out of the corner of my.

The rest of the day passed quietly. Sean stopped working on my sink at lunch time and then disappeared somewhere else, leaving me to finish my letter by myself. Evan left for the party after dinner and I spent the evening playing "Go Fish" with Caleb, Finn and Ian and the game room in the basement before going to bed. With Caleb and Finn's help Ian seemed to be warming up to my presence in the house. I went to bed early that night and slept through the whole night, no dreams, no trips to the bathroom, nothing. Which I greatly appreciated since I was woken up at five thirty the next morning by a child's voice calling my name and a small hand insistently patting my face.

"Megan. Megan wake up."

"Mmpphh. Caleb, go away, it's to early to get up. It's Sunday morning for crying out loud."

"Megan, you promised. Mommy and Daddy told me to go wake Evan up and you promised to bring your videocamera." That woke me up.

"Mommy told you to go wake Evan up?" I looked at him. He nodded solemnly. "Alright, give me two seconds." I got up and dug around in my purse for my camera. Caleb insisted on tip-toeing to Evan and Finn's room and John and Regina were waiting for us at the door.

"Caleb told us about your little bargain and we thought we'd watch and see for ourselves this morning. We've never bothered to in the past, the voices were usually amusing enough." Regina explained when I cocked an eyebrow at them. I nodded and once I had my camera ready told Caleb to go for it. He opened the door quietly and walked halfway across the room before taking a running leap and jumping into the middle of the sleeping form that was Evan's, all the while yelling "WAKE UP EVAN! WAKE UP!" Evan came flying up out of his bed mumbling obscenities and shoving Caleb off himself before attempting to go back to bed. It didn't work. At John and Regina's silent prompting Caleb began jumping up and down on Evan still yelling at the top of voice for him to wake up.

"Dude! Would you just acknowledge him already so he'll shut up and I can go back to sleep?" Finn growled hurling a pillow in Evan's general direction. It wasn't well aimed since he'd thrown it over his shoulder and he had his back towards Evan. Evan finally had no choice but to sit up and deal with Caleb. It was at that moment he noticed his audience. By that time, Doug, Miller and Ian had joined us and Sean was coming down the stairs from the attic. He'd been staring in a daze until he realized I'd recorded the whole thing and then he started scowling. Regina and John who had been silently laughing the whole time finally started laughing out loud, which got me going, which set Ian off, Miller was smiling fondly at his brothers and I heard Sean chuckle on his way down to the kitchen.

"Megan, do me a favor." John got out between bouts of laughter, "Post that on Facebook and tag Evan in it?"

"Dad!"

"Will do John!" I smiled, it was perfect. I'd planned on doing it anyway and now I had John and Regina's blessing to do it.

"Mommy, why does Evan's breath smell funny?" Caleb asked, staring from his brother's mouth to his mother and back again. For us older kids who knew darn well that Evan had probably had too much to drink the night before that set us off laughing again, but Regina just looked at Caleb and said "Because he needs to brush his teeth." Caleb accepted this , got off Evan's bed and then scampered out of the room announcing that he was going back to bed until it was time for his cartoons to come on. I too went back to bed for another three hours, but not until I'd posted the video of Evan and tagged him in it.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

I woke up later that morning to the smell of breakfast floating upstairs from the kitchen. I rolled over and discovered that it was almost nine thirty. In my hurry to get downstairs before the older boys (and the biggest offenders when it comes to food disappearing in this house) I didn't pay attention to who was up and about and plowed right a solid mass of something blocking my doorway.

"Careful there Meggie." Sean reached out and caught me to keep me from falling.

"Well if you hadn't been standing there without any warning." I muttered.

"I was about to knock." He was holding back laughter; I could hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes.

"Well?" He obviously wanted something. He let go of me and shoved his hands in his pocket, a very un-Sean-like mannerism.

"I promised Ian and Caleb I'd take them to the vintage car show at the high school this morning and wanted to know if you wanted to come along. You do still like old cars right?" I couldn't believe he remembered that. My dad is a _huge_ vintage car fanatic and it rubbed off on me over the years. I was really coming to the peak of my enthusiasm the last time our families had gotten together. It was the time I remembered hanging out with Sean and him not trying to drown me or hang me upside down from something, because he too at that point had been very into (and obviously still was) vintage cars.

"I'd love to come. What time are you leaving?"

"It started at nine, so whenever everyone is ready."

"Okay." He sidestepped and let me out of my room. As I walked by I could have sworn I felt him reach out and touch my hair (I'm really sensitive to stuff like that) but when I turned around to look he was half way up the stairs to the attic. I shook it off and went to go find breakfast.

I had to admit this car show was one of the better ones I'd attended over the years. The primary focus was older cars and so far I hadn't seen one newer than the early eighties.

"Ooo, what's that car?" Caleb demanded excitedly, pointing to an all too familiar light blue and white car.

" '65 Chevy." I blurted with out thinking, staring at the car longingly.

"And you know this how Meggie?" Sean was shooting me a puzzled look.

"I used to have one." I shrugged like it was no big deal. Caleb and Ian's mouths dropped wide open as they looked from the car to Sean to me and back again.

"You what?" Sean sputtered.

"I had one, one time. One of the older gentlemen in our neighborhood had one he was getting rid of. It was in really bad shape and he was practically giving it away, so I bought it from him and my dad and I restored it together."

"What happened to it?" They all demanded together.

"I had to put it in storage when I moved. I tried to sell it, but believe it or not, nobody in the area wanted it and I didn't have time to try the internet." I was still staring at the car, "They ride like a dream." I whispered.

"You're saving me a fortune in car show admissions fees from now on Meggie." Sean said grabbing Caleb and Ian's hands and hurrying for the exit.

"How?" I hurried to catch up. I'd forgotten how fast Sean is.

"We're gonna take a little road trip and go get that car of yours and show it off up here. Exhibitors get in free."

"I don't know that it would survive that long a trip." I said.

"We'll but it in a trailer. Now come on, I want to catch Mom before she leaves to go grocery shopping."

John and Regina (and the rest of the boys for that matter) were just as surprised at the discovery of my owning a vintage car as the other three had been, but they quickly agreed to let Sean and I go get it (Regina would be coming with us of course).

"See! I told you we'd need that extra carport!" John exclaimed, shooting Regina a triumphant (more smug than triumphant actually) look. Regina mumbled something incoherent. "When did you two want to leave?" She asked turning to Sean and I and ignoring John.

"Toni-"

"Whenever is convenient for you." I cut Sean off. Regina looked back and forth between us. "Tomorrow morning. That will also give us time to pack, and charge our cell phones." She put emphasis on the last part and looked pointedly at Sean. Somehow, it didn't surprise me that Sean's phone had a dead battery more often than it was charged and functional.

The group broke up and I hurried up to my room to start packing. I stopped just outside my door. It was hanging part way open and I was certain I'd shut it tight this morning when I'd left with Sean. I pushed it the rest of the way open with out actually going in. I knew Caleb wasn't hiding anywhere in here because I could here him downstairs whining about something, I could here Ian in the front yard with Doug and Miller, Finn was at art class and Sean had gone outside with John to set up the extra carport. That left Evan unaccounted for. I looked around the room but didn't notice anything out of place and he wasn't hiding in the bathroom since the door was wide open. I went into the room cautiously. After a few minutes I found the proof I was looking for that someone had been in my room. It was a note from Evan taped to my closet door.

_youre seriously gonna regret the day you turned me down brat by choosing sean youve made yourself a whole mess of trouble_

I wondered briefly if I should show the note to Regina and John, or even Sean for that matter. I had no clue what Evan was capable of, for all I knew he could have been just messing with my head, but somehow I didn't think so. Two things were absolutely clear from this note though. One, that Evan totally didn't get that even though there was a mutual attraction between Sean and I that it wasn't like we were a couple, it was highly unlikely that would ever happen under his parents roof (Sean and I both tend to be peace keepers, doing whatever it takes to keep the flow from being disturbed), and two, Evan has no sense of capitalization or punctuation.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Needless to say I didn't sleep well that night. I'm even amazed I slept at all, but somehow I did. I even managed to get through the morning without running into Evan, which I thanked God for all morning.

"Ready to go Megan?" Regina poked her head into my room, and discovered me sitting on my suitcase trying to zip it shut. "Um, Megan?"

"I put my pillows in here too; I probably shouldn't have tried though." Regina laughed.

"Take them out; we'll put them in the backseat with the rest of the pillows and blankets." I handed them to her and my suitcase finally zipped.

"All set now?"

"Yup!" I lugged my suitcase downstairs and out to the car. That was when my good luck ran out. Evan was helping John tie the suitcases to the roof rack (why they couldn't just go in the trunk was beyond me, but whatever). The look he shot me clearly said _"You're gonna pay."_ Which I didn't understand. I had turned down one party, _one_ measly party, and hadn't responded to his attempts at flirting with me and he was acting like he'd committed a federal offense and _I'd_ been the one to turn him in! Sheesh…I'd only been here a couple of days, but I was glad for this chance to get away, Evan was seriously starting to creep me out and I needed some time away from him to figure out how to handle it. It also didn't hurt that I was going to get my car _and_ I got to spend some time with Sean _without_ his other brothers around. Yes, I admit it, I caved. I totally and completely caved and gave into my old crush for Sean. How could I not? He's soo sweet with the little ones, I mean come on, what twenty year old do you know of who _voluntarily _takes his little brothers to car shows? There's also the fact that he's no longer hanging me upside down and threatening to drown me, that's a massive plus.

"Well, I think that's just about everything. Have you guys said goodbye to everyone?" Regina asked as she slammed the trunk shut. I'd forgotten to see what had been put in there, darn it. Sean answered with his typical monosyllabic utterance and climbed into the passenger seat.

"Yup." I climbed into the backseat. Everyone that I was going to say goodbye to anyway.

"Well I'll be right back and then we can hit the road." She disappeared back inside the house.

"Evan been giving you trouble?" Sean's question startled me.

"What?"

"He's been acting sulky lately, like he didn't get his way about something, most likely a girl. Has he been bothering you?" So, Sean had noticed. I'd only been here two days and the fact that Evan was acting like this still surprised me, I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that Sean had picked up on it, but it did.

I wasn't sure how much (if anything) to say, so I shrugged my shoulders and stared out the window.

"You let me know okay?" I looked at Sean (he'd flipped the mirror down so that he could see me without turning around), the look in his eye radiated concern and somehow I had the distinct impression that Evan could be _very_ dangerous, that this wasn't the first time this had happened.Which needless to say did not help my nerves. I was just glad I was getting away for a couple of days, and I hoped that by the time I came back, Evan would have found a new girl to occupy his thoughts.

"Sure." He grunted his reply.

"How come your vocabulary so rarely extends beyond a monosyllabic utterance?" I asked, throwing a couple of really impressive sounds (at least in comparison to Sean's seemingly limited vocabulary).

"I talk with you."

"True, but I seem to be one of the few people you do talk to." He shrugged. I would have pressed further but Regina came back just then.

"Alrighty, I think we're all set. Let's hit the road!"

"Before we get to far from the house, I'd like to point something out." I said.

"What's that dear?"

"How are we going to get my vintage car from California to Massachussets? I'm almost one hundred percent certain that it won't drive from there to here."

"We're haulin' it on a trailer remember?" Sean reminded me. I had sort of forgotten about that until now, but in my defense things with Evan had totally driven everything else from my mind.

"And where are we going to find to _safely_ haul a vintage car across the country in?" I was very curious about this, and in case you hadn't picked up on, I can be just a tad defensive of my car.

"Trust me Meggie."

"Hmmph." I slid down in my seat and pouted. Regina chuckled softly. And with that, we off on a cross-country excursion to rescue a vintage car from a fate worse than death, that fate being having to spend the rest of it's existence in storage.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

The trip out to California was _awesome_. Regina was great, she let Sean and I call all the shots along the way, where we ate, what we ate, where we slept, it was awesome, it was like being a little kid again and going on an adventure.

I did finally find out what was in the trunk by the way. The trunk was jam-packed full of camping stuff. Tents, sleeping bags, bug spray, fishing poles, you name it, it was there.

"No wonder there was no room in the trunk for our bags." I gapped at the collection. "How'd you get it all to fit?" They laughed, "Practice." Sean said.

We'd decided to camp out one night and were unloading the trunk, well, Sean and Regina were unloading, I was standing back afraid that the contents of the trunk would come flying out at us with one wrong tug of something. The campground Sean had picked was amazing. Each site was sort of secluded from the others and they all had rock wall fire pits with grill tops propped against them. We made a trip to the grocery store after the tent was set up and got hot dogs, buns, condiments, stuff for s'mores, Oreos, and ice cream for dessert.

We spent the evening around the fire remembering all the antics the lot of us kids had gotten into growing up and laughing our heads off. The stories included the one time I'd been able to get back at the McGowan boys for all the horrible things they'd done to me.

We'd been living just outside of Boston at the time and visits with the McGowan's were frequent. My dad had just finished building me a tree house across the creek from our house, where I could still be seen from the living room windows, but I still felt like I was all by myself away from everyone. My revenge was sweet. The McGowan's had come for a visit one weekend I'd rigged the bridge that went from our backyard to the other side of the creek to my tree house and when the parents sent them into the backyard I called them across, when they hit the center of the bridge it collapsed, and all of the boys (except for Caleb and maybe Ian) became _soaking_ wet. I laughed my butt off soo hard that afternoon, as did the grownups. All of the boys except for Sean were really mad at me. Sean just looked down at me and said "I guess I underestimated you. Didn't think you'd ever try to get even.", and smiled at me before going inside to dry off.

"That was when I knew you were feistier than you ever let on." Sean told me. I laughed, it was true. Very rarely did I ever let that side of me show, but as usual Sean was one of the few people who saw through me and saw who I really was.

I wasn't quite ready to go to bed yet when Regina announced that she was turning in, and I took advantage of being by myself (since Sean had disappeared a little while earlier) and just stared at the fire, thinking back over the last couple of days.

"So what'd you do to tick Evan off?" I jumped. I hadn't heard Sean approach. "Don't you know better than to sneak up on people?" I demanded, waiting for my heart rate to return to normal. He laughed.

"But it's so much fun! Don't change the subject though. What'd you do to Evan to tick him off so much?" He sat down next to me.

"Other than not flirt back and refuse to go to some party with him, nothing." He snorted, "That's a serious enough crime as far as Evan's concerned. Forget for the moment you turned down a party invitation with the school's best athlete, you refused to flirt back with the school's hottest guy. That's a pretty big offense as far as Ev's concerned."

"The school's what?" I had _not_ just heard Sean call Evan hot.

"No joke. He's been voted "Class Hottest" every year since he started junior high. It's sort of gone to his head, but seriously Meggie, watch your back. Evan's got a mean streak a country mile wide. I don't think he'd try anything with you, what with you living under the same roof and all, but you never know." I shuddered. Sean's comment confirmed some of my darkest thoughts about Evan. Thoughts I hadn't even really allowed myself to think. I stared into the fire. What exactly was Evan plotting? What was he capable of doing? No, forget I asked either of those questions. I didn't want to know. All I could do was pray that Sean was right, that Evan wouldn't have the guts to try anything under his own parent's roof.

"Penny for your thoughts." Sean whispered, reaching over and tucking a piece of my hair behind my ear. I looked up. There was some strange emotion there in his eyes. Something akin to love? No, Sean was twenty, and I was only sixteen. There was no way that Sean would ever think of me as anything more than a little sister. Or was there? My mother had always said that boys tease and pick on girls they have crushes on. Was that what all those years of torture were about? I stared into Sean's eyes, hoping for further revelation, he was leaning closer to me, our faces barely inches from each other…

"Megan honey, it's getting late, you should probably think about coming to bed now. If you see Sean tell him to douse the fire!" Regina's call scared the crap out of both of us, we must have jumped a good six inches out of our chairs. Sean muttered something under his breath.

"What'd you say?"

"Nothing." He got up and grabbed the two buckets of water we'd draw earlier from the nearby creek and tossed one over the fire. It sputtered and went out, and after another minute, the second bucket got its contents dumped over the fire pit to make good and sure the fire was out. Sean went into his tent. It took me a minute to realize I was standing in the pitch black in the middle of the woods but when I finally did I moved faster than I have in a long time and dove into the tent I was sharing with Regina and crawled into my sleeping bag.

Regina didn't talk to me as I settled into to go to sleep, which left me (unfortunately) plenty of time to think. Had Sean been about to kiss me? Were my crazed girlish fantasies right, did he actually think of me as something other than his little sister? I turned over and curled into a ball on my side and prayed for sound sleep to come quickly. I would deal with the McGowan boys in the morning, after a good nights sleep and a good breakfast.


	8. Author's Message

Author's Message

To those who are following my story and waiting, probably not so patiently for a new chapter:

My apologies for not being better about continuing this story, nothing drives me crazier than finding a story I love on FanFiction and not having updates on it.

I do however want to say, that I have a new chapter underway. It may not be as good as previous chapters, but I haven't thought anything at all about this story in a very long time so getting the momentum back and redeveloping the plot line may take some time. I ask you to be patient a little bit longer. I should have a new chapter up sometime in the next day or two.

I do also want to add, that since I know have a laptop of my own and don't have to share with my mother any more, that there is a slight chance I will be better about updating, since I know have access to a computer, pretty much all the time!

Thanks for hanging in and waiting for the next chapter for so long!

Writergirl9106


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The rest of the trip home was uneventful. My car, thankfully, made it all in one piece. It wasn't really that old, I mean come on, 1965 was only forty some odd years ago, but it hadn't been taken care of and was barely even a car when I got it, never mind the sports car it was supposed to be! I'd put a lot of time and love into this beauty, and was kind of worried about how she'd survive the trip.

"Wanna drive her home?" We were stopped at a road side gas station about twenty minutes away from the McGowan's house. Regina had gone into the store to use the restroom, Sean was pumping gas and I was taking the opportunity to stretch my legs since our last rest stop had been over three hours ago.

"Hmm?" I hadn't heard Sean, I'd been staring at my car and seeing how badly it need to be washed, waxed, detailed, the whole shebang. Apparently that dust cover I bought didn't do such a hot job.

"Do you want to driver her home?" He nodded towards the car. "We can unload her here, and you can drive her home if you want to. She can make it that far can't she?" He looked skeptically at the car.

I really, really wanted to drive her home, but…

"I don't know if she'll make it, I wasn't totally done messing with her when I had to move." I sighed, "Driving will just have to wait a little bit longer."

I wasn't ready to go back to the McGowan house just yet. Nothing further had happened between Sean and I on our road trip and that was probably a good thing. After all, he is twenty and I am sixteen, and I'll only be living with them for a couple of months. But still, a girl can dream.

And then there was Evan. I still wasn't sure what to expect on that front when I got home, hopefully not too much trouble. School would be starting tomorrow, and it's not even like we'll have too many classes together since he's a senior and I'm a junior. Not to mention most of my classes are AP classes and Evan has _no_ AP classes. This I know for a fact, because Finn and I were comparing schedules before I left on the road trip and he had Evan's and Doug's schedule with him. No AP classes anywhere in sight on any of the boys schedules! It made me very happy.

Regina came out of the store as Sean was putting the gas tank cap back on so I crawled into the back seat of car and braced myself for whatever awaited me at the McGowan home.

What awaited me was Caleb coming barreling out the house screaming, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" and launching himself at Regina before she'd even had a chance to step out of the car. Sean slid into the driver's seat as soon as Regina was headed towards the house and backed the trailer into the carport that John had set up in our absence.

"Home sweet home." He turned the engine off and stared at the house. We'd been gone an entire week , and between that and everything else recently I was exhausted. I didn't even acknowledge Sean, I just grabbed my bag, crawled out of the car and, thankfully, unnoticed went up to my room and fell asleep.

The next morning I was awakened by shouts of "Get out of the bathroom man!" and "But I don't wanna!" and "Who the hell drank all the coffee?!" The latter being Sean, I'd sort of been hoping he wouldn't be up and around until after I'd left for school, but apparently I had no luck whatsoever.

I crawled out of bed, took off my pajamas and crawled into the first pair of jeans I laid my hands on. I hunted around for my most comfortable t-shirt and grabbed whatever happened to be nearby for a sweatshirt. I threw on the t-shirt and snuck out of my room and paused a moment to take in the pandemonium going on in the hallway.

Doug was pounding on the bathroom door screaming and cursing for whoever was in there (presumably Evan since Finn didn't strike me as the type to take forever on his hair) to "hurry the hell up, it's high school not a f-ing beauty pageant", which earned him a week's ground from his mother who was two doors down the hallway wrestling a squirming Caleb into school clothes, while Caleb was shouting "I don't wanna! I don't wanna go to school! You can't make me! I DON'T WANNA!" Ian and Miller were nowhere in sight and at that moment Finn came out of the room he shared with Evan confirming my suspicion that Evan was in fact the one in the bathroom. I could vaguely hear Sean grumbling as he thumped his way downstairs most likely to make another pot of coffee following the not so mysterious disappearance of the first pot. While Sean was probably blaming his brother's over the lack of coffee I had my suspicions that Regina was the real culprit, I'd need a whole pot of coffee to deal with this and not go crazy. I waited to seconds more before going downstairs.

Sean was nowhere in sight when I reached the kitchen thankfully, so I grabbed a package of poptarts and a bottle of orange juice and headed back to my room.

Once in the haven of my room, I found my iPod and put in my earbuds and cranked the music as loud as it would go in a mildly successful attempt to drown out the chaos in the rest of the house. I couldn't quite block out Doug pounding on the door of the bathroom. I ate the poptarts and drank my juice as I rooted around under my bed for my school back and made sure I had everything in it…not that there was much, just my folders, some pens and my laptop.

Just then somebody grabbed my shoulder and I jumped about a foot and a half.

"Geez!" I whirled around, "What the heck Sean!?" I glared at him.

"I did knock."

"Hmph." I turned away from him and continued looking for my wallet.

"I came to offer you a ride. I'm taking Finn and Miller in early. That way you won't have to ride the bus with Evan and Doug." I paused. I hated riding buses. I had really been dreading riding the bus to school this morning. Especially with Evan. And as much as I wasn't sure what to do about Sean (if there was anything that could be done about this whole thing), I'd rather ride in a car with him than on a bus with Evan!

"Sure. I'm just about ready, I'll be downstairs in a minute."

"Okay." He turned away and headed for the door. At least this time he had stared at me in the funny unnerving way he had been since I got here. Maybe I'd been imagining it…and he _totally_ had _not_ been about to kiss me while we were gone. This was a good thing….maybe. But just then he stopped in the doorway and ruined that theory. He stared at me for the longest moment, before leaving and going back downstairs. Great…just great.

The ride to school was painfully quiet. We all stared out our respective windows and the radio played some talk show I'd never heard of and didn't bother paying any attention to. I hated starting new schools. I'd tried to talk my parents into letting me homeschool myself a couple years back, but I hadn't been very successful with that argument.

Suddenly Sean pulled up in front of an ivy covered building that looked like it had been standing there since the time of the founding fathers. Finn and Miller climbed out of the car without so much as a goodbye to Sean and headed into the building. I sat for a minute longer in the backseat taking it all in. The huge building and sprawling grounds with some smaller buildings that could be seen on the edge of the property, the groups of teens everywhere, jocks slapping each other's backs and girls in super short skirts jumping up and down hugging each other, it was almost like the scene before me was straight out of a movie or something. Not a single one of those girls looked like she cared about anything other than her clothes, hair, nails, friends, gossip, and current boyfriend.

"You've got to get out at some point Meggie." I started a little at Sean's voice. I'd been so lost in my desire to be able to run away from this nightmare called high school that I'd forgotten I was still sitting in his car. "You'll be fine. And worst case scenario you can always hang with Finn and the art clique. They're pretty cool kids, pretty accepting, friendly, not too troublesome. He has them over sometimes to hang out." The last part I'm sure was in response to the questioning look on my face.

"Thanks for the ride."

"No prob."

I got out of the car and took a deep breath before heading across the lawn towards the building that had a huge "Welcome Back!" poster hanging over the intimidating double front doors.


End file.
